September 2008 - Jura

Killer dunes

Friday, September 26, 2008

Year One
Date: 27/9/2008 19:00
Weather: clear, sunny, 28 degrees C, a little breezy
Location: Yellow patch, Cape Capricorn
Author: Peter

When we were living back at home I would spend an hour or more most afternoons after work either swimming or riding my bike through the Royal National Park. When you live in a space the size of a small boat exercise becomes a little harder, so as a result there is no doubt I am a little tubbier. It comes as no surprise then that as soon as a cruising boat gets somewhere its occupants can't wait to stretch the legs, and we are no exception. Over the last four days we have been anchored at Cape Capricorn doing some exploring ashore while sitting out a little wind offshore. To explore anywhere ashore, the first thing you have to do is climb one of the many 40m plus, caster sugar grade sand dunes. These sand dunes are so steep and soft, the second you bump one you can watch sand flow as if it is water.

I am now so out of condition that even part way up the sloop it feels like I'm having a heart attack and you can't stop or you will slowly slide back down. Crickey they are so bad that if everyone had one of these at their front door (like we do at the moment the world would be a much healthier place and no one would need a gym.

The most beautiful dune in the area is that of yellow patch. Although the surrounding sands are all white, this one dune stands out like a saw thumb due to its mustard yellow colour (orange when you wet it). Its about 300 long, way over twice our mast in height and stretches off into the bush towards the ocean. In the evening light its colours transform and it changes its appearance with each movement of the minute hand. It was also a little nerve racking getting Jura into the small river at high tide, as we had to cross a few shallow bars while trying to follow the very skinny deep water channel up to the face of the yellow sand. Cats would be much easier here and anchoring would be less painful as you could take the bottom and dry out instead of doing lots of maths to figure out where you can a can't anchor.

The "small" white dune off the anchorage at Cape Capricorn

Storm Season started a few days ago, and we were expecting one that thank goodness did not eventuate. The ones hitting Brisbane further south have been rather destructive with strong winds and large hail so we are hoping our luck continues and we keep missing them. I have had small hail before whilst on board and that was bad so I would hate to think about orange size hail, or lightning.

The front that helped intensify the storms also has kept us aboard for a couple of days while the strong south easterlies blew through. After some cleaning we spent some tough days watching telly, playing play station, reading books and baking bread. We are now awaiting some good weather so that we can head out to the reef to spend some time at Lady Musgrave before making our way down to Fraser Island for some whale time.

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Every days a Saturday

Monday, September 22, 2008

Year One
Date: 22/9/2008 19:00
Weather: Lovely
Location: Great Keppel Island
Author: Kylie

15/09/2008 Scawfell Island: Pete woke up, heard wind, and decided it was time to leave...he didn't look at the clock however...it was an early start -2am! We slowly sailed through to Digby Island where for the first time in many months we had an anchorage to ourselves. We left for The Percy Islands the following morning.

Digby Island

There was very little breeze and we drifted along asisted by the current. At times we were travelling at just 1 knot or less. We are not complaining however as the lack of wind made for some fabulous whale photographs.

The Percy Islands

What a fantastic yachting history this place has! Late afternoon saw us anchored in West Bay, Middle Percy Island along with quite a few other boats. We had heard some stories about this place, someone had said "there is an A-Frame on the beach and boats have left little souvenirs with their vessel details". That's a gross understatement. We did not expect to see quite the number of vessel plaques and signs that were present….there were thousands. I don't think you can imagine this until you see the pictures. Some people obviously came prepared with pre-made signs, other had written on coconuts, t-shirts, thongs, alcohol bottles, buoys, fenders, driftwood, plates, can openers and god knows what else. Every inch of this structure was covered up to 3 deep with signs. People listed their names, vessel name, sometimes a description, picture or painting of the vessel and the date/year they visited. Those lucky enough to have been there on multiple occasions had added to their sign over the years. And if that wasn't enough near the A-frame was a smaller shed that dated back even further. I think the oldest sign we saw was from 1961.

We spent several days at Middle Percy and learnt a little bit about its history. There are several dwellings on the island and currently they look a bit rundown. There is a Queenslander style homestead, a treehouse near the beach at West Bay and the Rondarval built by the Hicklings family. We did a walk to the old homestead (about 7km loop in soft sand). Some very creative person had created timber painted signs along the way with little poems about courage and information on the wildlife in the region.

The treehouse

Here is a short history from information board on Middle Percy Island
Captain Matthew Flinders surveyed the Percy Isles in September 1802 and commented favourably on its natural assets. He mentioned evidence of the nomadic aborigines who in 1830 killed two white botanists visiting Middle Percy. In 1860 a Gladstone man named Jimmy Joss settled here as the first permanent resident. He helped build Pine Islet Lighthouse in the 1880's. In 1918 he was taken away, too old and too ill to stay…supposably leaving 1500 gold sovereigns buried beneath a special rock. Colonel Armitage obtained the first lease and settled with his family in 1887. He grew coffee and raised sheep and cattle. The lease changed hands several times from 1918, until the White family from Canada bought it in 1921. They built the present homestead and ran the island as a sheep station until 1964. Andrew Martin bought the lease in that year and began catering to the boaties needs. He built the A-frame, the treehouse and planted the coconut trees on the beach.

We are told that recently there was a big legal dispute over the owner of the lease. Apparently when Andy became too sick to continue living on the island a man convinced him to sell the lease for 10 pounds. Andys family has fought and we read on a sign in the A-frame "Finally the court case against Colter, who conned "the island" from Andy Martin; has been successful. Cathryn (Andys cousin" has taken over the running of the Island and caring for the ecology as Andy wished." Next year the lease ends, National Parks have expressed an interest in controlling the island and have offered the current leaseholders a conservation lease in inhabited areas. We are hoping this doesn't affect the A-frame but it almost certainly means the palm trees will be removed.

Middle Percy Island has a natural lagoon, there is a very narrow entrance at the end of West Bay. We are told at high tide we could even get Jura in there! This time we just investigated it in the dinghy. The tides around here are huge, changing by about 5metres!

I had my first real swim all year off the beach in West Bay. It has been quite a strange cool winter and I am a bit of a woos so not including snorkelling and diving I really haven't been swimming up here. (We are now anchored off Great Keppel Island and we have been swimming everyday)

Sunset at Percy Island

The weather has been much warmer lately and a light north-east breeze has been blowing most days. Many of our fellow cruisers are using these conditions to make their way south at quite a phenomenal speed. We have been left behind, however we were surprised to meet quite a few boats still heading up to the Whitsundays. We met a lovely couple, Bob and Gill aboard a 16 year old aluminium catamaran. They had lots of advice and we picked their brains about the dos and don'ts of cat designs. For those who don't know we have plans to build a cat sometime in the future (we are talking many years away…don't think I could go through the building stage again this soon)

Catamaran "Bellatrix". Does this boat look 16 years old? So far ahead of its time!

I have been trying to think what day it was we left Percy Islands…what day is it today??…mum said to me recently "everyday is a Saturday for you guys" and she is right, its really hard to keep track of days especially since leaving Airlie Beach 2 weeks ago, there really has been no need to know the day. So it was (just checking the log book) 19/9 which would have been last Friday. The wind was too good so we picked up anchor, pulled up big bird and sailed away from the Percy Islands. We were heading back to the coast to Island Head Creek. Many people had mentioned this as a good anchorage so we thought we would have a look. It also happened to be about half way between Percy and Great Keppel. The wind died on us for a while and we had to motor to avoid hitting the most inappropriately positioned island (there are little islands popping up everywhere). We came back into phone service and received a msg from Pete and Jess saying where are you? They had left Airlie a week behind us and stopped at Shaw Island to beach the boat and apply antifoul. It turned out they were already ahead of us having made a direct line south but they were only a few miles ahead and planned to anchor only a bit further south of Island Head Creek. They planned a much faster trip south so we wanted to catch up one last time before they sped off. We both anchored in Port Clinton for the evening and the following morning we were woken by them at 6.30am as they left to catch the tide south. We motored out after them and with little wind we then bobbed making just 1knot south. That is 1knot of current no actual speed!!! They motored away over the horizon. Around midday there was wind again and we flew big bird and main getting up to 9knots at times. They were experimenting with a new kite and we ended up catching them around North Keppel Island. We both anchored in Great Keppel as the sun went down and had dinner together. The next morning they were off again and we have sat here exploring now for 2 days.

Caravanserai anchoring atGreat Keppel

One thing I have to mention is all the whales we have seen. We have been surrounded by pods whilst sailing and at anchor. I have managed a few good pics of mother and calf doing tail flicks in unison and a few big belly flops pics too.

Today we went on a massive walk and I think I will need to spend tomorrow recovering. We duckied to shore intending on walking to the lighthouse on the eastern side of Great Keppel by our calculations we expected about 4-5km each way but as usual the path was not too straight and the lighthouse was over several big hills. Turned out to be about 7km each way and it is really hot walking. You don't notice the heat on the boat but as soon as you step ashore it is much hotter. We made it back after much grumbling by me and whilst the views were quite spectacular the lighthouse turned out to be little more then a navigation light. It was short, reasonably modern and not worth walking all that way for.

Coryn, hope you had a great birthday and didn't fall over too many times. Mum, the doughnuts turned out pretty well, need to cook the next batch a bit longer they were a bit doughy inside- good first attempt though and very easy to make. Much easier than hoping into the car and driving somewhere to buy them and much better tasting than anything we could get from the Great Barrier Reef "supermarket."

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Back at Scawfell

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Year One
Date: 13/9/2008 15:00
Weather: Beautiful one day, perfect the next.
Location: Scawfell Island
Author: Peter

Yesterday we sadly left Newry and set sail for Scawfell Island. Shortly after leaving, whilst filling out the log book I called out to Kylie to keep her eye out for whales. Inside the boat I heard the loudest whale song I have ever heard and thought they must be close. Much to our delight a small pod with two calves entertained us for the next half hour. We had a few more encounters like this over the course of the rest of the day.

Back at the Newry's, our last two days were spent exploring either on foot or in the duck with Kylie "i don't like walking back along the same path" taking us on another of her bouldering excursions as we made our way around the exterior of Outer Newry Island. These excursions seem to be nice and we certainly see some interesting things but they are very tiring and hard on her knees. Whilst trolling behind the duck Kylie managed to catch a small cod and mackerel both of which we put back. We even spent a lazy morning just relaxing on our own private beach on Rabbit Island. Wow.

A catamaran from Coffs Harbour. This is our favourite cat design, best looking cat we've seen.

Our sail across yesterday saw us catch an Australian Spotted Mackerel, which our guide listed as good eating, so guess what everybody? We had fish for dinner last night. It was edible!!! There was even enough uncooked fish left for at least another two dinners, so stay tuned for more fish experiments when it comes back out of the freezer.

We have just spent the morning relaxing, and I have been for a snorkel, although my sinuses are still stuffed and I cannot dive under the water. To me Scawfell is the most beautiful island we have visited in the whitsunday's and as such is a great spot to say farewell to the region.

As soon as the winds turn in our favour we will be headed 60nm SSE to the Percy's.

And by the way mum, I even managed to read Matthew Reilly's "Ice Station" in just over twenty four hours. Not bad for me. I must be slowly speeding up.

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At the Newry Islands

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Year One
Date: 11/9/2008 14:00
Weather: Magic
Location: Newry Islands 20'51 10S, 148'55 83E
Author: Peter and Kylie (almost healthy)

Well after re provisioning at Cannonvale we are on the road again. Having spent quite a while in the Whitsundays we still have not done everything we wanted to do. Lucky we will be back in future years and will be able to complete our "to see and do" list as well as being able to head further north.

After two short hops to Happy Bay Long Island, and Burning Point Shaw Island we now find ourselves at the Newry group. The poor weather during race week has gone. It has been absolutely magic ever since with beautifully clear warm days and light SE/NE breezes helping us get south.

We are currently anchored in Port Newry a narrow passage between Newry and Outer Newry Islands. Three large and three small islands all National Park make up this group. The islands were once a part of a mainland mountain range. Since arriving Kylie has seen her first dugong (I am so jealous and hoping for another appearance), we are surrounded by some kind of large mackerel (over a metre) doing giant leaps into the air as they chase the bait fish, we have small Qld dolphins swimming by and last night two turtles were making out in the shallows of the beach off Newry Island.

It is beautiful ashore but different to the island just north. For starters there are mangroves, which we have not seen for a while, and the island is much drier. There are sand beaches, mainly copper in colour. Newry Island had a low key resort on it up until 2001 when National Parks took over the island. The abandoned old huts are still visible today, with informative plaques describing the history of the area. Unlike other resort islands in the Whitsundays, this island is not covered with weeds, having instead a wonderful array of grass trees as undergrowth. Walking through the bush at Heathcote when we lived there I thought there were allot of grass trees but that is nothing compared to here. There are just so many it is difficult to see anything else getting a chance to grow through. Around the area of the old resort is a wonderfully flat grass area set aside for camping. This would be an amazing place to spend a holiday camping, and being so close to the mainland it would be an easy tinnie ride out. We are so surprised that no one was here unlike Tasmania where there were allot of campers, even in some extremely cold places.

The beach on Newry Island with the old resort bar (shed) on left

View towards the mainland

Walking tracks

It feels good to be somewhere different again and one that has some walking tracks. We will be here for at least another two days exploring some of the other islands, and Kylie is hoping to catch one of these monster mackerels so she can hold it up for a photo. The only problem being, I'm not sure if she could hold one up!!!!

We are both still suffering a little from the flu, but are much better than we were. This one has hung around for allot longer than normal and we are not sure why. It has affected what we do each day as our energy levels are still not up to their normal levels.

This is great place to visit, so if you are one of those ninety people that checked our blog out last week (thats right our blog hit counter registered 90 hits...don't you guys have a life?????? hehehe), give some thought to visiting the Newry's if you get a chance. By the way, who are you all? And why have more of you not come up for a visit?

By the way we will be having dinner ashore tomorrow night at one of the many picnic tables taking advantage of this wonderful weather. Are you jealous now? Best view from any dinner table I know.

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